Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate to seasonal light strings and, more particularly, to seasonal light strings employing capacitors as a shunt and methods of assembling the same.
Description of the Related Art
Many different designs for seasonal light strings are known. In the design of traditional seasonal strings, the lamps, either incandescent lamps or light emitting diodes (LEDs), are series connected. If one of the lamps burns out or becomes loose from the socket, the light string circuit will be open and the lights in the series will no longer illuminate.
In order to allow the circuit to remain closed when a bulb burns out or is loose, a device known as a shunt can be employed. An alumina shunt is one example of what has been employed inside a tungsten incandescent bulb so that when a tungsten filament is burnt out or broken after prolonged use, the outer layer of the alumina shunt wire will evaporate and the alumina shunt will start to conduct electric current. The circuit will remain closed and the remaining lamps can still illuminate. One major drawback of an alumina shunt is that it cannot prevent the circuit from being open when a lamp is off the socket.
Additional shunts of different sorts have evolved and are placed across the terminals inside the lamp socket. These components are typically assembled by hand, and thus the process is costly sometimes slow compared to other aspects of light string production.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to have a method of automating or expediting the assembly process of a seasonal light string employing capacitor shunting.